BEATING OF INNOCENT MAN BY DEPUTIES IS CAUSE FOR CONCERN

I retired a little over a year ago after serving 23 years in law enforcement as a police officer in San Diego. I write this in light of last month’s disturbing incident in which a Vista sheriff’s deputy and one of his colleagues manhandled and injured a young innocent man with Down syndrome. They claimed the young Latino man looked suspicious and they believed he may have been involved in a crime. Not until the young man had been handcuffed and placed in the back of the patrol car did they realize that he was developmentally disabled and had nothing to do with the radio call they said they were responding to when they picked him up.

The Sheriff’s Department later admitted that the incident was a mistake. This mistake should have never happened. Taxpayers cannot afford mistakes like this to happen. The outrage and indignation of the North County Latino community cannot be underestimated.

I know we should not blame every officer or sheriff deputy in any one department for the actions and total lack of good judgment and common sense of a very few. But unfortunately and very often after incidents of abuse like this happen, we all shrug it off and leave it out to fester until the next incident happens. Then we, the public, will have to deal with it again. We are expected to move on accepting the misdeeds of the few without asking why it happened in the first place or how this can be avoided in the future. Apologizing and admitting that a mistake was made may not be enough.

It is disturbing to know that in this day and age our police and sheriff departments have a reactive attitude to something they should be proactively addressing on a daily basis by providing cultural awareness training, instituting an officer awareness program on police biases and prejudices, stressing the importance of store fronts and outreach to the Latino community to educate the public on law enforcement practices. Work with the community and be receptive of it.

This type of abuse cannot go unnoticed. Neither should it continue to go unchallenged. Sheriff Bill Gore and many other law enforcement administrators need to realize that these unnecessary incidents happen all too often. They may not all occur at once or in the same place but maybe often enough by the same officer or officers in any given place. All elected officials should be questioning this type of behavior, if not they’re equally to blame. Most of these incidents have gone unchallenged, unquestioned and without accountability from the officers for their actions. We need to ask Sheriff Gore, when is enough going to be enough? Some people may disagree with me but I have always said that “trust and respect” are the most important things in any relationship. When it comes to law enforcement such a concept is especially important and carries not only a large amount of responsibility but accountability by those who enforce the law. Those entrusted to enforce the law have been given an extraordinary amount of power. It is only when we see an abuse of that power that we feel that our trust and respect are being violated and it is only fair to raise questions and demand that things change and that every possible step needed be taken to avoid the same or similar incidents from occurring ever again. With all due respect, I strongly believe that these acts will stop when law enforcement and local city administrators make it clear that such acts will not be tolerated, and that this type of behavior would carry civil or criminal consequences.

Ronquillo, an Escondido resident, is a retired San Diego police officer.